


Dragons? Dragons.

by drneroisgod



Category: H.I.V.E. Series - Mark Walden
Genre: AU Where Everyone Gets a Dragon, Gen, M/M, Rarepair
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:14:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 8,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26737213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drneroisgod/pseuds/drneroisgod
Summary: This is a series of short fics that take place in an alternate universe where H.I.V.E. is a coastal school for villains and their dragons. There is no plot. It's just magic and dragons all up in this fic.
Relationships: Otto Malpense/Franz Argentblum, Wing Fanchu/Nigel Darkdoom
Comments: 21
Kudos: 5





	1. First Day of Fall

**Author's Note:**

> I do not personally have a large vested interest in worldbuilding in this series, so what you need to know is this: the dragons work the way they do in Patricia C. Wrede's _Dealing with Dragons_ , the riders work the way they do in Christopher Paolini's _Eragon_ , and the magic works the way it does in Disney's _Tinkerbell_ films. I may also do something with the elements as well. I cannot and will not be more clear than that.

“If I have to be awake for this, so do you jerks.” Shelby threw a pillow at Otto’s head and struck home.

Otto flinched. “Ow. Thanks for that, Shel.”

On the other side of the room, Wing was upright in bed and already combing his hair into its traditional ponytail. “I take it you’ve had a long morning, then?” he said, appeasingly.

Shelby pinched the bridge of her nose. “Listen, I’m as much a fan of pumpkin spice mead as the next gal, but do we really need sunrise rituals  _ every _ equinox?”

“If I want to fly, I do,” Laura said pointedly, elbowing past Shelby and surveying the boys. She, unlike Shelby, was strapped into her riding gear beneath her black Alpha’s cape, and looked very much like she had someplace to be. “Happy autumn. Are you ready?”

“Very nearly,” Wing assured her. “Isn’t that right, Otto?”

Otto rolled onto his stomach and pulled his pillow over his head. 

Fifteen minutes later, Otto, Shelby, and Wing joined the pulsing throng of students hiking up and out of the volcano to greet the brisk coastal air above. 

“Look, there’s Franz,” Shelby said. “Hey, Franz! Join us?”

“Good morning,” Franz said, falling in step. “Cold, isn’t it?”

“Cold, and dark, and miserable,” Otto groaned. “Is it summer yet?”

Wing offered Otto a small smile. “I am afraid you will have to wait another two hundred and seventy-two days.”

Shelby snorted. “That’s rich, coming from a winter mage. I cannot  _ wait _ for December.”

“That’s what you said last year, and then what happened? You didn’t go outside for two months!”

“Because my leg had been broken in  _ seven _ places!” Shelby said coldly. 

“Guys,” Franz breathed. “Look! It’s starting!”

They ran the last hundred meters to join the rest of the school in the Gathered, where Brother Francisco raised his arms for silence. Overhead, the first rays of sun slipped over the horizon, hitting his golden prosthetic, and Otto closed his eyes: he could not exactly describe why, but he loved the sound of sunlight on gold. It was like running water around the rim of a wine glass, and yet, polyphonic and broad. 

Francisco was not one much for words. “It is time!” he yelled, a grin spreading across his face. 

One second passed. Two.

The first dragon shot from the volcano, then the second, and then in twos and threes, until the sky was a chaos of flapping wings and cheerful screeches as the giants shook the sleep from their scales. Then, they took formation. Riderless dragons—Wing silently pointed out his and Otto’s flying together—made a wide outer circle, swiftly collecting autumn-magic dragons and their riders in the middle. They circled the Gathered as one, the shafts of light hitting their scales scattering across the student body and releasing music that was not unlike that which the brother’s hand made. 

Five, six, seven times they circled—and then they dove! One after the other, each dragon flew low over the Gathered, spitting a short burst of flame against the black diamond laid in the center of the floor and, instantly, crackled with a replenished supply of magic for the season. 

“There’s Laura,” Shelby said fondly, pointing out a slim golden-brown male—as though they hadn’t all spoken to Vylryss nearly every day since arriving—who twisted in the sky for joy as the magic settled between his wings again.

“And there are Nigel and Gnar,” said Franz, gesturing to a familiar hickory-colored dragon, too young as yet to have chosen a gender. 

“They do look spectacular, don’t they?” Otto said, shielding his eyes against the sun as he peered up at them all. Sunlight against webbed wings, dew glittering against iridescent scales. He could hear the laughter cascading down from the sky. This was the ritual’s center, he thought. Riders, dragons, magic-doers of all kinds, breathing in something fresh and releasing it—change was palpable in the air. 

“Does this mean you have changed your mind about sunrise rituals?” Wing asked teasingly.

“Absolutely not,” said Otto. “Give me a ritual at high noon any day.”

Shelby offered Otto knucks. “Me, too, dude. Me too.”


	2. Sick Day

An aspiring villain with the flu is a force to be reckoned with, but a sick dragon? Otto knew them to be downright formidable. 

“Nerys,” he said desperately. “I’m not going to hurt you!”

_ I will not have the draught-that-tastes-bad _ , said Nerys, rattling zher wings and hissing as though Otto were an attacking soldier of the Glass Battalion and not zher rider.  _ I shall not! _

“You have to have it,” Otto said firmly. “Stablemaster’s orders.”

Nerys poured into Otto’s mind the full depth of emotion zhe felt at that moment: disgust at the medicine’s flavor, anger at being treated like a newborn hatchling, resentment that Otto was forcing zhim to do this. But, beneath that, there was fear, and exhaustion, and the uncertainty Nerys would never have admitted to out loud.

“I know, pal,” Otto said, and he did. That was what it was to be a rider: to share a patch of consciousness with a dragon and to feel what it was to be a dragon as deeply as he felt what it was to be a human. Nerys was Otto’s closest friend and other half. Nerys was also perfectly capable of being a proud and stubborn dragon who needed to be bribed and wheedled into serving zher own self-interest.

_ Don’t patronize me _ , Nerys grumbled.

Otto smiled. “I would never. Now let’s try again.”

It took another thirty minutes, but they managed. As he often did when he had time at the end of his day, Otto climbed up Nerys’s back and settled in the concave space between zher wings. Otto was used to the coolness of zher scales—their concentration was winter magic, after all—but this, he could tell, was a symptom of his dragon’s bug.

“Do you want me to build up the fire?” he offered.

_ Yes _ , zhe said.

Otto pointed a finger at the brazier in the center of the room and whispered the incantation—at once, the room blazed with a merry, bright fire.

_ Do you think we could go flying tomorrow?  _ Nerys asked, sending Otto mental images of gusting clouds and a view where their volcano was just a speck on the horizon.

“We’ll see how you feel,” Otto said. “And we’ll have to get the stablemaster’s approval.”

_ I was afraid you’d say that. _


	3. Baking

When exams were on the horizon, Franz was stressed. When Franz was stressed, he baked. And when Franz baked, Wing liked to join him—it reminded him of his mother. 

They were making apple bars. 

“Please don’t try to help me,” Franz sighed, stirring the wet ingredients together. “I don’t understand transportation spells and going over them again won’t help.”

Wing wiped his hands on his apron, leaving a white smear. “Okay, okay,” he conceded. “But I think your emotions are getting the better of you. You have all the basics.”

“So I’ve been told,” said Franz shortly.

A slow, dry scratching sound echoed down the halls. It slowed in their doorway, and Wing shook his head, not looking up from his work.

“Moochers,” he said. “You know this food is not for you.”

In the doorway (a dragon-sized doorway, as everything was at a school for riders and their dragons), Satoko and Bo flicked their tails eagerly. Satoko casually stretched her long, red body into the room, curling up behind Wing and beginning to purr. She and Wing were a perfect pair: equally graceful and calm, and, of course, fierce on the battlefield. They frequently disagreed.

“No,” Wing said. “I saw you bring in a deer carcass this morning! You cannot possibly be hungry.” 

Satoko elected not to share her thoughts with Franz—which was fine, he was a little scared of her—but evidently she said something unkind, because Wing turned angrily to eyeball the lizard. 

“If my behavior is so reprehensible to you, you are free to leave!” 

Satoko made no mood to leave. Neither, for that matter, did Bo, Franz’s paired dragon. They were the largest of the dragons in their friend group and the oldest. Unlike with his friends, Franz did not have an egg hatch for him—his bond with Bo was made of necessity, when the dragon found themself riderless and on the brink of death. Yes, they were haggard, and more than a few of their lichen-green scales were missing, as well as their left eye, but they had a simple faith in Franz that he had never anticipated. After all, after living fifty years alongside a master, what would he, a complete novice, have to add to the elder dragon’s life?

Bo purred with the music of a serrated knife scratching a rock. 

“These apple bars are not for you, either,” Franz said firmly. “We are going to bring them back to our friends and have a nice time listening to ghost stories.”

Wing shuddered. “I hate ghost stories. Do we have to?”

“I suppose that depends on how attached you are to your grades,” Franz said. “It isn’t the best homework, but at least we don’t have to take notes.”

 _He is very squeamish for a hero,_ Bo commented to Franz. 

_He’s not a hero, he’s a villain_ , Franz said. _We all are._

_That’s what you keep saying._

Wing, fed up with Satoko, tossed her a slice of chocolate, which she gobbled up.

“Would you like some too, Bo?” Wing asked. Bo growled in the affirmative, and Wing tossed them the same. 

“Okay, time to make yourselves useful,” Franz said. “Fire, please.”

Satoko hefted herself up from the floor, giving Franz a long, dramatic look, before setting herself in the fire pit and then ablaze. 

“Cooler, please,” Franz sighed, and Satoko complied, reducing her flames, at least somewhat. “Are you sure you’re going to want to sit there for twenty minutes?”

 _Of course_ , she said coldly.

 _Summer dragons_ , Bo commented. _They’re so temperamental._

 _You think you’re so tough, Bone-Splinter-Marrow-Crusher_ , Satoko snipped, hissing. _But I’ll get you someday._

“That’s enough, you two,” Franz said. “No dragon fighting. I don’t want to be one of the ghosts at the presentation tonight.”

 _Don’t be ridiculous_ , Satoko grumbled. _We would never kill our riders._

Mildly, Bo added, _Not on purpose, anyway._


	4. First Kiss

They forgot the cardinal rule of their school: dragons were terrible gossips. Anything that happened in the stables was liable to become news to the whole school in the space of perhaps five minutes—the hormonally-charged environment of a high school married to a stable brimming with telepathic lizards could only end in tears.

“But I thought he liked _me_ ,” Laura whimpered into her pillow. Shelby sat next to her on the bed, rubbing her back sympathetically.

“Well, I thought you had a pretty good shot, too,” she consoled. “But, you know, there are other dragons in the sky. If Otto isn’t into you, that’s his loss. Okay?”

In their private mind, Vylryss tried to give Laura a word. Laura closed their connection. She was completely uninterested in _him_ , especially when he’d seen the whole thing happen and hadn’t even thought about incinerating them out of loyalty to her. 

_Vylryss wants Laura to know he’s sorry_ , Lachesis, her own opaline dragon, transmitted to Shelby. _And he is offering to fight Nerys and Otto in deadly combat on her behalf, if that’s what she wants._

 _Tell him to hold off for a bit, please_ , Shelby said. _I think Laura’s just surprised._

There was a knock at the door.

“Shelby, can you help me, please?” Otto stuck his head in. “He won’t let me into the room.”

In her bed, Laura froze, and Shelby tensed, completely prepared to tackle Laura if the situation called for it. But Laura refrained from violence.

“I’ll be there in just a minute,” Shelby promised. Turning back to her best friend, she said, “Will you be okay?” 

“Go,” Laura sniffled. “I want to be alone for a little while anyway.”

Shelby stood and wrapped her cape around her shoulders before tiptoeing out into the great stone halls. It was easy to get lost, but after a few years, she knew the path to Wing and Otto’s room like the back of her hand. Otto stood out in the hall. 

“I hope you’re proud of yourself,” she told him. “Perhaps you’d better find somewhere else to be.”

“I didn’t want it to be like this,” Otto sighed. 

“Just go,” Shelby said. “And think of me when you’re allowed to sleep in your own bed tonight.”

As Otto shuffled away, Shelby climbed down into the room, where she found Wing sitting cross-legged on his bed, burning a hole in the wall with his gaze.

“That’s some spell,” Shelby commented. “But is it going to make you feel any better?”

Wing sighed and released the spell, leaving the smoking hole of molten rock to drip down the cave walls.

 _Lachesis_ , Shelby said. _A little help?_

Lachesis expressed her deep-seated pleasure without words. At once, Shelby felt her body flood with winter magic. Her magic was as cold as Wing’s was hot, and with a whispered word she pulled all the heat from the wall and up the chimney, leaving the room almost chilly. 

“It’s okay to be sad, you know,” she said. She took a seat next to him on the bed, and his eyes filled with tears as she opened his arms to him.

“I thought he liked _me_ ,” he bawled, pressing his face into Shelby’s shoulder. 

“Oh, I’m sorry big guy,” Shelby said. “I thought you had a pretty good shot, too. But there are other dragons in the sky. If Otto isn’t into you then, you know, that’s his loss. You’re gonna get through this.”

Otto held his face in his hands, contemplating his exile. 

“This is _not_ how I wanted our first kiss to go,” he mumbled. “I didn’t think everyone would get invested!”

“I’m sorry, too,” Franz said. “I think Wing wants to kill me.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Do you regret it?” Franz asked, blushing a little.

Otto was, at least, in this resolved. “No,” he said firmly. “I liked it. And I would do it again.”

“Good,” Franz said, moving in for another kiss—then their third, fourth, and fifth, all in quick succession. “Because I am really liking where this is going.”

In the doorway, Nigel walked in. “Hey, Franz, I—” He froze as he realized Franz and Otto’s shared occupation, and backed away with a look of profound hurt on his face. “Um. I have to go.”

Franz groaned, and Otto pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly. “You know,” he said. “Maybe I’ll just sleep in the stable until further notice.”


	5. Enchanted Forest

The trek into the forest was not particularly demanding, and the trees were thick, so Vylryss and Lachesis elected to walk behind Laura and Shelby as they went herb-gathering. 

“She’s not a witch,” Shelby said seriously. “That’s what they say anyway.”

“What do you mean, she’s not a witch,” Laura scoffed. “She controls people with her voice. She has personally controlled _you_ with her voice. Who else could do that but a witch?”

 _Or a wizard, or a warlock, or a very powerful demon_ , Vylryss mused. _I bet even a dragon could do it, under the correct circumstances._

“Well it isn’t her dragon helping her,” Shelby said. “Rumor has it that he’s at her family’s estate, protecting her treasures.”

“That’s so sad,” Laura sighed. “To be separated from your dragon for so long. I don’t think I could do it.”

Shelby gave Laura a funny look. “You know, I think sometimes you have too much respect for authority.”

Laura rolled her eyes. “You’re just a fraidy-cat.”

“If I’m a fraidy-cat, then why are we going further into the darkest parts of the forest?” Shelby grinned.

“That’s a good question.”

Both Laura and Shelby screamed in fright, and their dragons instantly unfolded their wings and ignited their flames. A couple of broken sticks from the trees above fell onto the dirt softly, and, aside from that, there was no sound. Shelby and Laura stood back to back, searching for the speaker who, obligingly, plucked herself from the shadows and approached them.

“What are you doing this deep in the woods?” asked the Raven, looking at them both with a disapproving expression. “Does anyone know where you are?”

“We brought our hall passes,” Laura said, pulling the protective charms out from under her cape. “You scared us.”

The Raven shrugged her shoulders. She, unlike the Contessa (apparently), _was_ a real witch, and one of the few non-riders in the volcano. She was Headmaster Nero’s closest confidante and favored assassin, and in general it was best to avoid her attention. She didn’t have the advantage of teeth or claws, but rumor had it that the swords strapped to her back were magical, and could cut through _anything_. Even dragon scales. 

“We’re just here to get some henbane and some slugs and then we’ll be on our way,” Shelby said, unable to keep from sounding nervous. “Care to join us?”

The Raven contemplated this. “You know, I think I’m running low on henbane myself,” she said. “And it’s the right time for it. Let’s go.”

They continued through the heavy shadows, and, though the Raven was also creepy, it was easier to feel brave with her leading the way. 

_You should not be afraid_ , Lachesis said to Shelby in their private mind. _If something tried to hurt you, I would eat it._

 _I appreciate that,_ Shelby said back. _But I still feel better with the Raven here._

“What were you doing out here?” Laura asked.

“Tracking goblins,” the Raven replied. “Nero thinks they plan to act against us soon.”

“I don’t envy any goblin who messes with you,” Shelby sighed. “Hey, Raven?”

“Yes?”

“Do you know how the Contessa gets her powers? People at school say it isn’t magic.”

The Raven pursed her lips. Shelby and Laura exchanged a look—if the Raven was nervous, then it had to be something terrible after all. 

“It isn’t magic,” she confirmed. “I can’t say I understand it myself. She has a machine. I’m not sure where it’s kept or how it works, though you might grasp it, Laura. You have a head for those things. It runs on electricity.”

“Electricity,” Laura whispered to herself, like a vow.

“And the machine makes people do things for her?” Shelby asked.

“That’s what they say.”

Shelby shuddered, but pulled some specimen bottles from her pack. “Give me slugs any day,” she said, beginning to pluck them from the trees. “At least they’re something natural.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In H.I.V.E., the Contessa is basically written as a witch with absolutely no scientific or otherwise rational explanation presented, I thought it would be fun to write a reverse universe where everything is magical all the time and the Contessa is a menace to society due to inexplicable TECHNOLOGY.


	6. Star Gazing

Nerys and Bo snoozed in the empty field, but their riders were wide awake. Stretched out on their saddle blankets, Franz and Otto looked to the skies. 

“That’s Audrey and her distaff,” Otto said, pointing to a collection of bright spots making a line in the sky. “According to legend, Audrey grew up poor. By some stroke of chance, she was accepted into an apprenticeship as a spinner and weaver. She became a master textile worker and caught the attention of the cruel and tyrannical king. When she was presented to his court, he tasked her with making him something no one else could make: a tapestry with moving figures.”

“Was she a witch?” Franz asked. 

“Not by modern standards, no,” Otto says. “But she had some magic, we think, because of what happens at the end of the story.” He paused.

Franz nudged him impatiently. “Well?”

Otto offered a lopsided grin. “Well,” he said, returning to his story. “Audrey told the king that to do such a thing, she would need special materials. For five years, she traveled to the farthest realms of the continent, gathering the finest wool and the ingredients for the most brilliant dyes, sending the king messages of her progress. He found he quite enjoyed her correspondence, and so, when she returned, he invited her to do her spinning and weaving in his throne room, so they might chat while she worked.”

“Let me guess,” Franz sighed. “She bewitched him with her charms, and when she made the moving tapestry, he proposed to her and then they were having a bushel of children together and lived happily ever after.”

Otto laughed, “No, the king was gay.”

“Really?” Franz raised an eyebrow. 

“I mean not like _gay_ gay,” Otto said. “They didn’t talk about love back then the way we do now. I mean, there’ve been books written about this guy debating the true nature of his relationships with various members of his household and court, and there’s also something to be said about his gender presentation, because it’s possible he was challenging the norms of his day, but it’s also possible that the censors who got hold of his histories three hundred years later added that in to make him seem deviant, and—”

“Okay, okay, so they didn’t get married,” Franz said. “What _did_ happen to Audrey?”

“While she sat and worked, she and the king talked, and she became one of his most trusted advisors,” Otto said, sounding just a little put out that he didn’t get to finish his treatise on the king. “For fifteen years, they spoke and argued, debated and discussed.”

“And?”

“Well, the kingdom improved. There’s a lot of scholarship about this, too, but—”

Franz gave his boyfriend a severe look. “Tell me the legend, Otto.”

“Fine,” Otto sighed, with mock exasperation. “As long as Audrey weaved the tapestry—which is to say, as long as she was advising the king—conditions in the kingdom improved. There are lots of things credited to her, but the most important is that, so long as the tapestry was being weaved, babies and young children wouldn’t get sick and die. The infant mortality rate dropped at an unprecedented rate.”

“Because the king was investing more in medicine and healing magic?” Franz asked. “And improving the quality of life for citizens in general?”

“Exactly,” Otto said. “But that isn’t exactly stated explicitly in the legend.”

“That’s nice,” Franz said. “Good for her.”

“Well, there’s more,” Otto said. “After fifteen years, the tapestry was finished. The king had been there to witness almost all of its creation, and so he knew very well that the tapestry did not have moving figures and was not magical. But he cared for Audrey and didn’t want to shame her. He planned on quietly having the tapestry hung up on the wall, and he’d find something else for her to do, since the people saw her as something like a good luck charm. But Audrey wouldn’t have it.”

“Of course she wouldn’t.”

“She insisted that everyone be invited to the palace in a showing of the tapestry. When the king protested, she said to him, ‘When you first called me into your service, they said your stony heart could not be moved—but I have moved it. Invite the people to see my work. You will see the moving figures.’ So, they held the party.”

“And?”

“ _And,_ they held the party, where guests from far and wide were invited to see her work. What happens next is not known, exactly, by legend or by history. They know there was magic, of course. But was it Audrey who whispered a special word she had learned when traveling the world? Was it one of the king’s wizards, who did not want to see the court shamed? Was there magic woven into the very fabric of the tapestry? We don’t know. But what we do know is that during the presentation, the tapestry’s images began to move. Like walking through a forest, the figures in the tapestry moved.”

“What does _that_ mean?”

“That’s how it’s described,” Otto said. “‘Like walking through a forest.’ It’s one of the only descriptors of the event that has been written down.”

“Okay,” Franz said. “So her tapestry moved. She fulfilled her assignment for the king.”

“Oh, Franz, but there’s more.” Otto's voice drifted back into its dreamy lilt. “As the tapestry moved, a dark figure that was not originally visible appeared and then grew larger. At first it seemed like a blemish, then it took on the figure of a body—a man. And then, when he stood at full height, he walked through the tapestry and into the throne room. It was the king’s long-lost husband, who had been thought eaten by wolves more than twenty years past.”

“No,” Franz gasped. “There’s no way that really happened.”

“Well,” Otto said smugly. “It depends on whether you believe the legend. But, for those who do, the king fell on his knees to see his husband returned to him hale and whole. At once, the king declared that he would adopt Audrey as his sister and she would join them in ruling the country in peace and prosperity for as long as the three of them lived. And she did! She went on to live the rest of her days as the king’s loyal sister and aide, and, when she died, the king placed her body on a dragon’s back, where she was flown to the stars. And that’s where her spirit lives on, weaving her next tapestry with moving figures.”

_That is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard_ , Nerys grouched. _Dragons can’t fly into the stars. They’re too far away and there’s no air._

“Well, they didn’t know that back then,” Otto said. “It’s just meant to be poetic.”

Nerys did not open zher eyes. _Poetry is stupid. The stars don’t look like anything, they’re just dots in the sky. And dragons didn’t put anyone up there._

“Does that mean dragons don’t have any constellations?” Franz asked.

Bo growled affirmatively. _We do not. We only use the names of the stars to navigate._

“The names of the stars… like constellations?” Otto suggested. 

_No,_ Bo said. _Every star has a name. Every dragon knows the name of all the stars. It’s how we find our way when we wish to fly long distances to meet up with others of our kind._

“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Otto said, propping himself up on his elbows and staring at Bo with a challenge on his face. “There’s hundreds of thousands of stars. Millions of stars. And there are stars we can’t even see! You can’t possibly have a name for every single star, much less know them all.”

_This is why we don’t tell humans our secrets_ , Bo said despairingly to Nerys, though both Otto and Franz could hear. _They just don’t understand._

_You’re telling me._


	7. Pumpkin Patch

“Nigel, these look fantastic!” Laura exclaimed, craning her neck to look up at the twelve-foot tall pumpkins. Littered throughout the patch were pumpkins of that size and smaller, some coming up to Laura’s waist, others the more traditional size, and some so small they’d fit into the palm of your hand.

“Thanks,” Nigel laughed, patting the side of his monstrous creations. “They’ll definitely set the mood at the Halloween gala.”

_ And they will make a pumpkin soup fit for dragons, _ said Gnar with satisfaction. The dragons were not walking through the patch as their riders were, but their long necks snaked over the patch with some interest.

“Can I have this one?” Shelby asked, picking one up. 

“Um, sure,” Nigel said. “But the pumpkin-carving contest isn’t for two weeks. It’s probably better to leave it on the vine for now.”

“Oh, I don’t want to carve it,” Shelby said. “I was going to use it in a spell.”

Laura glanced at her roommate. “I did tell you that there’s no such thing as “pumpkin spice spells,” didn’t I? I seem to recall we discussed it at breakfast.”

Shelby offered the pumpkin’s stem to Nigel, who split the vine with a tidy spell. “Your analysis lacks imagination.”

“What exactly am I missing?” Laura asked. “Pumpkin spice levitation? Pumpkin spice curses? Pumpkin spice healing? It just doesn’t make sense.”

Shelby snorted, but made no effort to explain herself, instead taking her pumpkin over to Lachesis and strapping it among her saddlebags. 

On the other side of the field, Otto, Wing, and Franz squatted in the dirt, staring very intently at an empty patch of dirt.

“If you mess up his pumpkin patch, Nigel is going to kill you,” Franz said. “Gnar will snap your spine in half and mangle your body. Your soul will never know peace.”

“You need to stop hanging out with Bo,” Otto said. “You are developing a morbid streak.”

“I am not wrong,” Franz insisted. 

“They’re pumpkins. He’s not going to kill me.”

“We go to a school for villains,” Wing said. “Anything could happen.”

“Both of you, shut up.” Otto stubbornly brushed at the dirt. “Franz, magic it.”

Franz rolled his eyes but summoned a tendril of spring magic, tempting the barren patch of dirt with a sparkling green mist. Nothing happened.

“I just don’t think you can grow a jack-o-lantern,” Franz sighed. “That’s not how it works.”

_ Don’t listen to him, Otto, _ Nerys rumbled in their private mind.  _ You just need more magic. _

“Then help me,” Otto grumbled under his breath.

Nerys, however, complied, and as Otto held his hand over the soil, it trembled and tossed before a green vine burst from the ground. A small green bulb took form, blooming into an orange gourd that just kept growing.

_ POW! _

Rancid orange goo coated Otto, Franz, and Wing. Otto wiped the juice and malformed seeds from his face. 

“That must have been the holes taking form,” Otto said glumly. “But the spell didn’t work it right.”

“Hey, assholes!” Nigel shouted. “Stop blowing up my pumpkins!”

“Or go blow them up in Nero’s office!” Shelby added. “That would be fun, too!”

“You first!” Franz returned, but it was a hollow line. It was impossible to maintain your dignity with pumpkin juice in your pants.


	8. Enemy; Lover

There were few things Wing loved more than early mornings on dragonback. At dawn, he would leave the cold recesses of their cell and hike up to the stables, where Satoko would already be warm to the touch. Wing strapped on his saddle and, both of them holding their breaths, they would burst from the top of the volcano, where they found sky and sky and sky and sky.

They flew until the volcano was a speck in the distance. They both loved skimming along the water’s surface, Satoko’s red scales reflected as a fiery blur in the choppy waters. Thoroughly soaked and exhilarated, they would launch themselves back towards the volcano at the top speed.

 _We should start going farther,_ Satoko informed him one morning, as Wing scrubbed the white sea salt from her scales.

“And where would that leave us?” Wing asked. “If we can see the volcano, we are within distance of help, should we need it.”

Dragons did not roll their eyes, but Satoko sent a wick of irritation into their shared mind. _Coward._

“Personal attacks only indicate that you have no solid reasoning for your opinion,” Wing said.

Satoko blew a stream of flame after him as he left: not to hurt, but not to not-hurt, either.

As it turned out, though, Satoko never argued the point further: the next morning, they were not entirely alone on the open seas. A few miles away, wings pumping, a brown dragon also taunted the ocean during its flight.

“That’s Gnar,” Wing mentioned. “And Nigel.”

 _That youngling?_ Satoko hissed. _We can beat them home._

She flipped over in the air, using the brightness of her crimson scales to flag the other riding pair. Gnar, too, looped in the air.

 _The challenge is set,_ Satoko said with satisfaction and, without another word, burst in a straight line towards home. 

Wing had no doubts that they would win: Satoko was lithe and fast in the air, and, in cases where he had flown with Otto or Franz, Satoko often found the other dragons slow and ambling. 

He underestimated them.

Darting through the sky, Gnar flew through the volcano’s opening a full three hundred meters before Satoko did.

“Are you asleep?” Wing asked.

 _No!_ Satoko growled, seething. _That egg-crusher must have been cheating!_

“How? They’re a spring pair; their magic is the weakest during this season. What was Nigel going to do? Grow flowers at us?”

 _Shut up_ , Satoko fumed.

In the stables, Nigel wiped down Gnar after their flight in a stall across the hall. Satoko had half a mind to go over there and start ripping out Gnar’s scales, one by one, but Wing convinced her that there would be time for a rematch later.

Nigel finished up first and, as he strolled past Satoko’s stall, he winked and said, “Good game.”

 _See?_ Satoko said. _You think we should destroy them too._

“Tomorrow,” Wing said. “They won’t know what hit them.”

And this, too, became a morning routine, flapping out to the horizon—waiting for Gnar and Nigel, if necessary, to wake up and join them—before charging back to the volcano, where Gnar would somehow snake past them. They were getting faster. But, to their growing irritation, Gnar always managed to snake ahead of them somehow. 

“Gnar and Nigel win by a nose!” Shelby commented one morning, watching them spurt through the ceiling one after the other.

 _He always does,_ Wing thought sourly, watching the short, bald boy dismount.

 _I could eat him,_ Satoko suggested.

 _Let’s focus on beating him instead,_ Wing sighed.

In some ways, Wing thought, it was easier for Satoko, who could hiss and spit her feelings at Gnar and that was that. Dragons enjoyed confrontation. Wing, instead, sat in class, watching Nigel out of the corner of his eye and trying to think of ways they could cut their time and put the other riding pair in their place.

What did Nigel have on them, anyway? He wasn’t stronger, or more powerful, or even more skilled than Wing. Not as far as he knew, anyway. His dragon, in fact, had been the last to hatch. People had thought that he wasn’t going to make it at this school. And yet, somehow, it was still Nigel who winked and wished him a good game every morning, completely unfazed by the urgency of the race.

Nigel and his stupid wink and his stupid smile.

“Mr. Fanchu?” Wizard Pike called on him.

“Yes, sir?” Wing asked, suddenly aware he had not been paying attention to his potions lecture at all.

“Do you have an answer?” Wizard Pike raised a knowing eyebrow.

“Um… dried chicken claws?”

Wizard Pike nodded his head grudgingly. “Correct. Now, class, the magical properties of dried chicken claws may not be impressive, but they are essential to this brew as a binding agent between the fire clary with the caterpillar root. Now—”

Wing breathed a sigh of relief. 

“You good, big guy?” Otto whispered beside him. “You seem distracted.”

“I am not,” Wing said, mostly trying to convince himself.

The next morning, when Nigel beat them, Wing spent a long time sitting in the stall staring at the wall.

 _You are taking this too seriously,_ Satoko told him. _It’s just a race._

“How can you say that?” Wing asked sharply. “This was your idea!”

Satoko blinked at him slowly, but kept her thoughts to herself.

The day after that, Wing thought they would make it—Satoko shot forth as they covered the last few feet to the hole and then, with no warning, she shot crossways through Nigel and Gnar’s path, missing the hole entirely.

“What are you doing?” Wing demanded. “We almost had them!”

Satoko said nothing. Wing glanced back—Gnar and Nigel were hot on their tail, and kept up the chase as she pitched up in the sky and then down again. Gnar and Satoko twisted, always inches from each other but never touching. 

Graceful, as ever, Satoko plunged through the volcano’s opening, but Gnar made no move to outstrip her. Instead, the two dragons landed gently next to one another, dumping their riders next to each other.

Wing wavered on his feet, slightly dizzy from spinning so much in the air.

“Wow,” Nigel breathed. “That was fun.”

“We almost had you,” Wing said quietly. 

Nigel took a step forward, his face flushed and cheerful. “Almost.” 

Satoko whapped Wing with the back of her tail, shoving him straight into Nigel. They both toppled into the hay. Wing stared down, his face inches from Nigel’s. He wouldn’t ever be able to say why he did it, he just did: he leaned down and kissed Nigel, quickly, before he could stop to think about it. 

Then he realized. Horrified, Wing rolled onto his back, prepared to sprint out of the room.

“Oh no you don’t,” Nigel said, using Wing’s momentum to roll with him. Wing looked up; Nigel looked down. Nigel kissed him again. Wing closed his eyes, leaning into it before they both broke for air.

Nigel was laughing. 

“All this time?” Wing asked, aghast.

“Of course,” Nigel told him smugly. “I thought you—”

“I just wasn’t thinking,” Wing said, still dazed. “Do you want to—”

“Yes,” Nigel said quickly, pulling Wing’s face close to his own. 

_You’re welcome,_ Satoko murmured, purring as she lumbered back to her stall.


	9. Pirate

_ I have met pirates,  _ said Vylryss. You _ have met pirates. What you are doing is not the work of pirates. _

“It’s piracy,” Laura said shortly. 

She was in the stables, where she would not be disturbed by Shelby, who had a tendency to interrupt delicate spells despite best intentions. Laura had set up a centering circle, in the middle of which was a long scroll and an enchanted pen, standing upright and awaiting words to inscribe. Laura had set out a few potions and powders, but the most important parts of this spell were concentration and incantation. 

She poured water into a bowl and whispered a spell: in the surface of the water, she was able to see a copy of her prize, locked up and bespelled in the security of a library she had never visited.

_ You are writing down an epic poem to share with your friends! _ Vylryss said.  _ There is nothing swashbuckling about that! _

“Swashbuckling, huh?” Laura grimaced. “Do you know how many protection spells they’ve put on this poem so that no one gets an unauthorized copy? I’m trying to get this poem from two hundred kilometers away, and I have to bypass at least five levels of security, so shut up! I’m thinking.”

Laura closed her eyes and began her meditative exploration of the spells. Tricky things, yes, but nothing she hadn’t handled before. 

Whispering spells under her breath, Laura pushed back the epic poem’s security measures, dodging the curses laid into the binding and diverting the protective measures for as long as she could.

On the centering circle, the quill began to write.

Laura forced herself to take deep, even breaths, stretching the security features as far as they’d go until, at last, the quill returned to its resting state. At once, Laura released her magic, allowing the security spells to snap back into place inside the library. Laura picked up the scroll, grinning.

“Otto’s going to be so jealous,” she said happily.

_ You still aren’t a pirate,  _ Vylryss told her.

Laura poured out her bowl of water into the dragon’s trough and packaged up the rest of her magical paraphernalia. 

“Legally, I am,” she said. “But who’s keeping track, at this point?”


	10. Domesticated

_Domesticated,_ Satoko grouched. _Domesticated! We are untameable dragons! This cannot be withstood._

 _They are humans. They don’t understand our ways,_ Bo stretched two green claws out in the sun. _You must not let it bother you._

They were in the Gathered. Their riders were off in class, or, perhaps doing homework that took them into the forest. Their dragons rarely concerned themselves with academics, and so the six sunning lizards occupied themselves instead with their own conversation topics as they napped.

 _Besides, Satoko,_ Vylryss commented. _You drink your water from a barrel like the rest of us. We are a little domesticated._

Clouds of black smoke rose from Satoko’s nostrils, but she said nothing. 

_I don’t see what’s wrong with being admired,_ Lachesis mused. _And I don’t mind a good cleaning after a long flight._

 _We aren’t being admired, we are being controlled,_ Satoko shot back. _You are just vain._

 _A vain dragon,_ Lachesis said, not offended in the slightest. _Well, what did you expect?_

Gnar watched Satoko closely. _Don’t you like Wing?_

 _That is beside the point,_ Satoko said. _Wing is my rider. We share one mind. The question is, should the humans be allowed to call us “domesticated”? We are wild things! We are terrors! Shouldn’t they fear us?_

Bo chuckled. _And that is why you like being scratched under your chin, eh?_

 _Besides,_ Gnar said. _People do fear us. Just not our riders._

 _You are too young to have picked your gender_ , Satoko said unkindly. _Do not tell me the way of things. I know it better than you._

Nerys roused zhimself and promptly bit Satoko’s tail. Satoko roared with pain, but Nerys did not back down in the slightest. 

_Behave_ , zhe warned. _Or I will draw blood._

Lachesis rolled onto her back lazily, taking a deep breath that sent sparks dancing on the stone floors. _I think you just like starting fights, Satoko. Who cares if we are domesticated or not? We need them; they need us._

Satoko curled tightly in a ball, tail tucked safely away from Nerys’s corrections. She had learned her lesson, and only said, tightly, _Perhaps._

Vylryss stood, moved ten feet, and sat down again heavily. _I think I would like to eat a shark._

All the dragons groaned.

 _Just go hunting,_ Lachesis said. _We do not need to hear a list of all the animals you would enjoy eating._

 _I’m just saying,_ Vylryss huffed.

 _Well, you say it all the time._ Bo stretched out a wing. _So find something else to talk about._


	11. Snow

“It will be winter, soon,” Otto said quietly. He and Shelby drank cups of warm tea in the mouth of one of the volcano’s many caves. Both had wrapped themselves in furs (courtesy of their dragons’ hunts) and both enjoyed the quiet of a sleepy weekend afternoon.

“Laura and Nigel have started decorating for the Solstice Festival,” Shelby remarked. “It will be a party.”

“Funny, because Wing and Franz are cooking again,” Otto said. “For the big day.”

Shelby took a deep breath of the icy air and smiled, though it didn’t quite meet her eyes. 

“What are you thinking?” Otto asked.

Shelby spent a few moments in thought. In the skies beyond them, a handful of dragons and their riders rolled and clashed among the air currents as they played grappletooth.

“It isn’t that I don’t look forward to the Solstice Festival,” she said. “I know it will be a lot of fun, and the solstices and equinoxes are always the most important days in our calendar. But I have been thinking about sitting this one out, perhaps.”

Otto furrowed his eyebrows. “How do you reckon?” he asked. “If you don’t attend the ceremony, you won’t refresh your magic.”

“No, I’ll go to that,” Shelby said. “But the celebrations, the songs, the dances. It’s all so much, and I wouldn’t mind just a little quiet.”

“Far be it from me to argue on behalf of tradition,” Otto replied, “but isn’t that why we have celebrations? We have all winter to be cold and quiet. That’s what winter is.”

“Maybe I’m just being a sourpuss,” Shelby sighed. “But I’m not really in the spirit this year.”

She looked up into the sky, and whispered a word Otto knew very well. 

“You’re going to have absolutely nothing left on the Solstice,” he chided her. “Not if you use your magic like that.”

Outside, a dusting of snowflakes began to fall. Shelby caught a few in her hand, willing them to stay frozen while she examined their ripples and whorls. In the skies, the grappletooth players paused to admire the white flurries over the ocean.

“Nah,” she told him. “We’re getting stronger again already. I can feel it.”


	12. Holly

The Raven knew the forest as closely as a friend, which meant there was still a great deal of mystery in there, no doubt about that. It was a new season, and with new seasons came new work. Potions to be brewed under a particular phase of the moon, seasonal ingredients that needed to be picked and dried or preserved, poisons and antidotes that could only be made with fresh ingredients.

It was a combination of all these things that kept her out in the forest all night, seeking holly berries gathered beneath a quarter moon, four different varieties of mushrooms, and evergreen needles that had just seen their first snow. 

Dawn had very nearly become daylight by the time the Raven emerged from the woods and she might have found a tree to sleep in if her ingredients did not require immediate preparation. She trekked onward, through the groves, past the Gathered, into the volcano and down, down, down into her own private alcove. She was, by nature, inclined to simplicity: her bedclothes were thick, but plain in design, and she had little furniture beyond a large kitchen table and two sturdy chairs. 

She grabbed iron pots, a sturdy silver knife, some empty glass bottles, and old-fashioned white vinegar. She grabbed some wood and started a fire, coaxing it to life with quick breaths and sprinkling a little powder among the wood so the smoke would float diagonally toward the chimney and not choke the room. 

She was a witch and an assassin and there were few people who had her skill or power. It still took her another three hours to do the chopping, boiling, stirring, grinding, drying, necessary to prepare her ingredients for their future lives as poisons, serums, and poultices. She sweated horribly but was careful not to let a drop of sweat fall onto her wood table. Salt was magical, too, and with something as delicate as evergreen needles, she could accidentally corrupt the whole batch, and she couldn’t afford to wait for the next snow.

Finally, she was ready for the actual goal of the day: everist poison, something deadly but painless. She had a mission. 

“It’s hot as a dragon’s throat in here,” said a voice at the doorway. The Raven was not surprised to see her patron in the doorway. He liked to wander. 

“Nero,” she said. “What time is it?”

“Almost lunchtime,” he replied, stepping into the room. He was tall and imposing. The faded white scars tracing up his neck indicated that he had been in this world for a long, long time. “Care to join me?”

“I need to finish this,” she told him. “If it’s going to be ready for my next trip.”

“I can wait,” he said, seating himself in one of the Raven’s sturdy chairs. “What have you learned about your next target?”

Raven glanced surreptitiously at the mirror that hung on the wall—the most ornate object in the room by far. She received all her missions from the other side of that mirror. She could never shake the sense that she was being watched when she left it uncovered. 

“He’s a sheriff from up north,” she said. “He has been lying about his records to the One, and the rest of the fellowship.”

She ladled some of the red juice from her cauldron into her waiting jars. 

“Everist poison,” Nero noted. “Not a fun way to go.”

“No,” the Raven agreed. “The One requested it specifically.”

They smiled evilly at each other for a moment. There were some perks to this job. 


	13. Family

Franz and Otto curled up together on Nerys’s back, cozy beneath a rough spun saddle blanket and the blue dragon’s own natural warmth. Otto rested his head on Franz’s chest. Franz smelled Otto’s hair quietly: it had the scent of hay and brimstone. 

“Are you sniffing me?” Otto asked, a hint of judgement in his tone.

“I like the way you smell,” Franz said defensively. “It reminds me of home.”

Otto frowned. “Really?”

“Oh, yes,” Franz agreed. “We had a stable much like this at home. This place reminds me of the times I spent with my own family, when they would take me on dragonback to pick up weapons and lay siege to towns.”

It was another reminder for Otto that he was a stranger to this world in a way that the rest of his friends were not. Even Laura and Shelby, who—like Otto—had never seen a dragon, much less ridden one, before coming to H.I.V.E., were familiar with some of the basic tenets of magic before they began classes. Otto, too, had his first tastes of magic, but the commune in which he had grown up had frowned on magic immensely. Franz’s childhood among dragons was as unfamiliar a lifestyle as this institution for formal education. 

“Does talking about family upset you?” Franz asked quietly, moving his arm around Otto and laying a hand on his chest.

“No, it’s okay,” Otto said. “I had a family, of a sort. It was just… different.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“There isn’t too much to tell, really.” Otto snuggled deeper against Nerys, who telepathically sent him the emotional fortitude to continue. Though Otto could share with Franz some of the painful things that happened to him before he became a rider, Nerys felt Otto’s memories with the same profound sadness. “The people who lived in our commune were used to taking in children from the neighboring villages. They don’t exactly believe in reproduction themselves, so that was how they got new blood.”

Franz frowned. “You mean no one was ever allowed to have their own children?”

“No,” Otto said. “People reared children assigned to them as they were found. And so I lived with a handful of other kids with one of the families. They were kind to me, but I think they knew, even from a young age, that I am… different.”

Even now, with a few years as a rider under his belt, Otto could not entirely explain how he felt the network of magic moving through and around everyone, everywhere, all the time. Even some of the most experienced practitioners at the school had only a vague notion of what Otto was talking about when he described the depth with which he could see magic. Laura, the most talented spellcaster of their age group, was as good as Otto at magic but only understood what he was talking about half the time.

At the commune magic was forbidden and the rules were strict. Otto had done his best to blend in, but his connection to the winter months was too strong. He didn’t expect he would have lasted long at all, had Dr. Nero’s operatives kidnapped him during their raid.

“You are one of the most amazing people I know,” Franz said, kissing Otto’s cheek with a pleasant smack. “You don’t ever have to hide who you are again.”

“Thanks, Franz,” Otto said. “Tell me about your family. I’d rather hear about them.”

“Where do I even begin?” Franz asked. His eyes took on a dreamy quality. “We ran a confection business. It was a cover, you understand, for our weapons smuggling. My father is the bravest and wisest man in the business! Have you ever been to the east coast of Kilkant?”

“Never,” Otto confessed.

“It is the biggest city for two hundred leagues,” Franz said. “In that city, beyond the walls, there is a curiosity shop in the eighth district. Now, that curiosity shop has been of immense help to my father over the years. The shopkeep’s name is Bart, I believe. And the last time I was there, my sister and I were tasked with going to pick up an item for my father: an engraved runestone with the power to detect running water.”

Otto closed his eyes, satisfied to hear the rumble of Franz’s voice bubble through his chest and against Otto’s ears. Franz remembered his family with such fondness.  _ Someday, I will have that, too, _ thought Otto. 


End file.
